Justice Insider: Waverly man charged with shooting robot

Danger, Will Robinson! A law-enforcement robot took the brunt of a Pike County man's aggression during a weekend standoff, said police in the village of Waverly.

Jeb Phillips, The Columbus Dispatch

Danger, Will Robinson!

A law-enforcement robot took the brunt of a Pike County man’s aggression during a weekend standoff, said police in the village of Waverly.

Officers were sent to the man’s home because of a report that shots had been fired inside. A standoff ensued, and police summoned help from deputies and from state troopers with two robots in tow.

The robots were sent in to confront the 62-year-old resident, who shot at and hit one of them, police said.

The man was arrested after about six hours and charged with vandalism of government property, among other things. Police said he was highly intoxicated.

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A trademark tangle in federal court involving taxi cabs and clothing appears to be resolved.

American Eagle Outfitters, the Pittsburgh-based clothing company, sued American Cab Co. of Columbus on Feb. 5 for using a flying-eagle silhouette on the doors of its cabs. American Eagle uses the silhouette in its logo, which is imprinted on all sorts of things, including advertisements, clothing, jewelry and cosmetics.

The complaint said that the cab company “blatantly misappropriated” American Eagle’s copyright eagle so consumers would believe the companies were linked.

Theodore Remakius, who represents American Eagle, said last week that the cab company has removed the eagles from its cabs.

“Brand is so important,” he said. “You have to keep people away from using the brand, so you protect its value.”

Calls to the owner of the cab company were not returned.

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When writing last week about a man accused of stabbing his mother to death, Dispatch reporters made a distinction between the words homicide and murder because those terms don’t mean the same thing.

Homicide is the killing of one person by another person. That’s not necessarily a crime. A killing in self-defense, for example, is a homicide.

Think of murder as a legal term, a charge brought against someone who has committed a certain kind of unlawful homicide. It’s “purposely caus(ing) the death of another,” Ohio law says.

Columbus police quickly determined on Wednesday that the death of Latonia Banner, 41, on the Northeast Side was a homicide. Someone had killed her.

But they decided after further investigation to charge her son, 19-year-old Robert L. Lindsey, with murder.

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Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Squires gets a lot of second looks when he carries his lunch into the federal courthouse Downtown.

For the past 11 years, Squires has accessorized his suit-and-tie attire with a 1970s Partridge Family lunchbox, the same one his wife toted to elementary school.

“It was a gift from my in-laws years ago because they know I like old things and I’m goofy,” Squires said.

A picture of the bus from The Partridge Family TV show is on one side of the metal box, and images of the singing family, led by actress Shirley Jones, are on the other.